Disarmament is more practical than we are conditioned to think

As attention shifts to the NATO summit
in Chicago, a statement by sixteen non nuclear weapons states, including
Switzerland and Norway - an ally of the nuclear weapons states, says that
nuclear weapons and programmes have catastrophic humanitarian consequences and
should be abolished.

In a recent article on the progress of
the nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament talks now under way in Vienna, Rebecca Johnson
notes that the newly formed coalition of pro-humanitarian states has the
potential to become a game changer. Of all that has happened thus far in Vienna
the most exciting news is the statement
by a coalition of 16 non nuclear weapons states, including Switzerland and
Norway - an ally of the nuclear weapons states, that nuclear weapons and
programmes have catastrophic humanitarian consequences and that they should be
abolished.

This initiative is the first involving western
states to apply to nuclear weapons the thinking that has moved humanitarian
disarmament on land mines, cluster munitions and the arms trade. President
Obama’s cry for nuclear disarmament in Prague in 2009 may have
had more effect than skeptics and critics believe. But more needs to be done as
disarmament has long suffered from some kind of lethargic paralysis.
Paraphrasing Richard Moyes and Thomas Nash, if disarmament
were like an old PC it would need to be restarted. Indeed, restarting
disarmament is a must, and not only at the nuclear level. The consequences
would be immense, including a boost to democratic development as highlighted by
Andrew Lichterman.

So how can disarmament be restarted? To
begin with, we need to realize that compared to tackling climate change the
technical issues are simple. Unlike combating climate change, disarmament can
tremendously benefit from past achievements. We need not reinvent the wheel.
Cost-efficiency and time-effectiveness are the road to success, especially in
times of global recession.

The dilemma for civil society activists
is to find the effective measures within the complex political and technical
world of weapon systems. All too often NGOs can become ensnared in this world
and lose touch with a wider public. A fabulous example of how to get technical
while keeping a radical agenda can be found in the work of the century old
global feminist organization, the Women’s International League for Peace and
Freedom whose ‘Reaching Critical Will’is a key
resource on the official documentation of disarmament talks.

So how can the majority in the world get
some new energy to pressure the nuclear haves? After all, much as we would like
to ban the bomb, it’s impossible, right?

The noted communitarian Amitai Etzioni endorsed
this approach in a recent message which referred his supporters to a denunciation
of ‘nuclear utopianism’ by one Keith Payne. ( Readers might be interested that
the same Payne once wrote in the days of Ronald Reagan that ‘Victory is
Possible’ in an all-out nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union).

The ban the bomb majority in the world
can use a forgotten but tried and tested means of eliminating a nation’s WMD.
This the system of inspections in Iraq from 1991-2003 led by Rolf Ekeus, Hans
Blix and Mohammed El Baredei. This effort did its job and there were no WMD in
Iraq, despite the slurs of Dick Cheney and the Neo-Cons that legitimated the
whole invasion of Iraq on the basis that the inspectors were merely naive UN
folk – easy pawns for the evil and sophisticated Saddam.

In our concept for achieving complete
world disarmament in the SCRAP project we offer precision tools for the most
rapid and effective disarmament measures for the use of non-specialists seeking
to be able to hold their own with specialists. Unsurprisingly it is not in the
interests of those favouring the status quo to advertise most of the good
practice we are offering. Older readers may remember that before the end of the
Cold War in the Reagan–Gorbachev era great disarmament agreements were made,
and that the the UN did complete the WMD disarmament of a quintessential ‘hard
case’, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

The ‘best practice’
for governing and eliminating WMD can be found in the mandate and work of
the United
Nations Monitoring, Verification and
Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC)
in Iraq between 1999 and
2003 (UNMOVIC took over from the work of its predecessor UNSCOM) and in the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Drawing on this
work would benefit from more than sixteen years of expertise and on-the-ground
experience (UNMOVIC continued to be effective until 2007) with great results in
Iraq – despite the calculated denigration of the inspectors that enabled the
Iraq war to be launched.

Using the UNMOVIC and IAEA work as a model provides a proven method to
do away with the nuclear and other WMDs of all nations, including those of the permanent members of the Security Council
(China, France,
Russia,
the
United Kingdom and the United States) as well as those
of the nuclear powers
outside the NPT (India, Pakistan, Israel
and North Korea). Research results from VERTIC
concerning warhead dismantlement should also be integrated into disarmament
procedures to render them effective as well
in restricting terrorist access to nuclear technology and
fissile material stocks.

The nuclear haves
always argue that while disarmament is a fine ideal it is not practical. They
also tend to argue that it is unenforceable and unverifiable. However, when
faced with the idea of having to go through the processes that disarmed Iraq,
officials from these countries tend to make the opposite argument - that the
Iraq processes are too intrusive! Arguing to apply the Iraq inspections
globally would not just be practical but presents a delicious irony that can
perhaps foster further support from the wider public. Non nuclear weapons
states, especially the more vocal ones, could therefore incorporate this
argument in their demands for the denuclearization of the haves.

They should also
intensify their offensive by demanding more transparency from the nuclear
powers. Enhancing confidence security building processes, regionally and
globally, can only result in more trust and less security dilemma. This and
calls for universal adherence to the Open
Skies Treaty would corner nuclear weapons states as they run out of
excuses to maintain their nuclear arsenals. The Open Skies Treaty permits
aerial inspections of military activity across the Euro-Atlantic region and
could be extended globally. Here again the work of UNMOVIC and IAEA could be of
unprecedented value as they join to coordinate potential cooperative projects
amongst the nuclear states as proposed by the International Panel on Fissile Materials.

Technology and
science will play an ever increasing role in disarmament, arms control,
non-proliferation and international security. Drones and automated planes could
be used for peaceful not bellicose purposes – as is already happening in
certain parts of the world. New ideas are necessary, new thinking is
primordial, but most of the work has already been done. One may cite for
example what a senior Obama official, Rose Gottemoeller has coined “public
verification challenge”. As states engage in disarmament talks and action
citizens can get involved in helping them meet their reduction commitments.

The 2012 round of non-proliferation talks in Vienna is drawing to a
close. Divisions persist but the non nuclear weapons states have the chance to
continue to push nuclear weapons states towards denuclearization. Attention
will now shift to the coming NATO summit in Chicago where the alliance clings
to its Cold War strategies. Civil society’s role is crucial - coalescing and
cooperating is the way ahead. Restarting disarmament will be achieved not by
reinventing the wheel but by building on the best practices of the past and
present times.

David Franco is a Research Assistant in the Disarmament and Globalisation programme at the SOAS Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy where he is coordinating SCRAP. He is also Editor and Columnist at InPEC, an independent online magazine on international politics, energy, and culture founded by SOAS alumni in 2011

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